A Change of Heart: MUA

I've been pretty bad at updating this blog lately thanks to one of the most time consuming activities on the planet - job hunting (thankfully I'm now soon to be employed, woohoo!) so there are a few posts I'm hoping to write up in the next few days.

Today I thought I'd have a little bit of a moan, and unfortunately retract some of the positive things I've said on this blog about one of my ex-favourite brands, MUA. I've mentioned quite a few of their products, but over time I've been finding one recurring problem that has really put me off of buying anything more from the brand - the packaging of nearly every product I've bought has broken within a few days/weeks.

The first breakage came immediately after buying one of their lipsticks last year. Each lipstick is meant to have a little bit at the bottom that shows the shade of the product, but this part of the packaging snapped off almost immediately once I got the lipstick home. No big loss as I wasn't too sold on the shade anyway.

I wrote a rave review of MUA's Undress Me eyeshadow palette back in November, and I remain impressed with the product quality to this day. The packaging was never anything special, but this didn't bother me - until the lid broke a couple of months ago. I'm now left with a pretty useless palette that I can't carry around or keep in my makeup box without making a massive mess.

I recently wrote a post about the combination of MUA's Undress Me Highlighter and Bronzed Perfection bronzer, both £3. I loved both of the products and found that they worked really well together, and couldn't beleive that they were such a brilliant bargain. Unfortunately, the reason the products retail so cheaply seems once again to be due to cutting corners on packaging - the lids of BOTH of these products have for some time now been broken. As with the eyeshadow palette, this renders them pretty useless - I can't take them anywhere and have to keep them seperately to the rest of my makeup.

 I'm absolutely gutted to think that such lovely products are rendered unusable by such a stupid detail as shoddy packaging. Just to be clear, I do look after my makeup - I don't keep products loose in my bag and store them in a box and home. It's only my MUA products that I've had any trouble with - I recently tweeted the company about this issue, but sadly got no response.

In future I will probably avoid MUA, and stick to my other budget favourites such as Sleek and e.l.f. Shame.

MUA Bronzed Perfection Bronzer & Undress Me Highlighter

Apologies for the lack of posts recently; I have just got back from holiday with my uni girls. The holiday was the perfect way to end a beaut 3 years at Reading Uni, and I'm pretty gutted to be back in the grey UK!

Whilst on holiday, I suffered that age old problem - I didn't want to put my head in the sun whilst sunbathing because I was trying to read my Kindle, but didn't want to end up with a tanned body and white face. In the end I gave up and surrendered to the inevitable two-tone bod, and decided to rely on makeup to even out my skin tone.

My weapon of choice was MUA's new Bronzed Perfection Bronzer, which will set you back a mere £3. I decided to purchase this product after reading several positive reviews on the Bloggersphere, plus I needed a new bronzer anyway. The other thing that drew me towards this MUA offering was its matte finish - although I'm not opposed to a shimmer bronzer, I usually find that cheaper products tend to contain primary school style chunks of glitter that are far from flattering. Here's what the product looks like...

I've been using this bronzer alongside MUA's Undress Me Highlighter, £3, another lovely product that I mentioned in my Five Under a Fiver post a couple of months back. I use this highlighter sparingly, just brushing a small amount of powder above my cheekbones. Here's what it looks like...

I was not disappointed by either product. My first impressions were that, like many MUA products, both the bronzer and highlighter are huge, making them very good value for money. The bronzer only comes in one shade, but I imagine this will be a pretty universally flattering shade for Caucasian skin.
When using a brush to pick up the bronzer I did find that particles did fly all over the place, although this is fairly easily remedied by passing the brush very lightly across the product, and blowing gently on the brush before applying to the face.

The bronzer comes out a lovely shade on my skin, is easy to blend and is build-able. I've been applying it first of all to my cheekbones, jawline and temples, then a thin dusting over the remainder of my face to match the tan on the rest of my body. Here are some close ups and swatches of the products...

My main concern with both of these products is that, like several MUA products I already own, the packaging feels fairly flimsy. My favourite MUA Eyeshadow Palette, Undress Me, has been rendered difficult to use now that the lid has broken at the hinges, and the tube of one of my MUA lipsticks has also broken. Although I am beyond impressed at the amount and quality of the product you get for your money with both the bronzer and highlighter, I worry that the packaging will break before I'm able to use them up.

Both products score 4/5

MUA: Undressed Palette / Lipsticks

I tend to buy my beauty products from Boots above anywhere else, simply because I love their generous Advantage Card scheme. For this reason I'd never really heard much about MUA, a brand only available online or in Superdrug, until I started reading some other beauty blogs. After reading one particularly complimentary review, I knew I had to try some of their stuff out - partly because it seemed as if the products were half decent, and partly because they are simply TOO CHEAP not to try.

When the MUA range launched, all products retailed at the too-good-to-be-true price of £1 each. As the brand became successful, a new range was launched - MUA Professional - and although these items are slightly more expensive, I couldn't spot anything that costs more than £4. Prodcuts from the original range still cost £1 a pop.

I picked up two lipsticks, a coral-ish pink (shade 14) and a plummy purple (shade 2) from the original range, as well as the Professional 'Undressed' eyeshadow palette. As the name suggests, this palette is an unapologetic copycat version of Urban Decay's £35  'Naked' palette - except this MUA alternative comes in at just £4 (£3 if you're quick - I bought mine on a special offer instore at Superdrug, although I'm not sure how long this deal will last).

First off, the lipsticks. The first thing I noticed when I used either shade is the smell - although not particularly unpleasant, there's no denying that it has that cheapo lipstick odour. Strangely, I noticed a big difference in the pigmentation of the two lipsticks despite them being from the same range - the coral shade never seemed to fully coat my lips even after a few coats, whereas the plum appeared nicely pigmented after just one coat - odd! Maybe it didn't help that I wasn't all too keen on the coral to start with - for a start it's a very summery shade, and I think it would have suited me far better if I'd kept my blonde hair. I completely love the plum though - the shade suits me far better, and lasts longer than the coral, probably because it actually fully coated my lips to start with.

Now for the palette - and I am delighted to say that this is one of my favourite beauty bargains of the moment!  (At this point I would love to whip out a Naked palette and do a direct comparison, but alas - the only thing I can justify spending £35 on is my fortnightly Tesco shop.) The range of colours is lovely (nigh on identical to the Naked shades), with a nice balance of matte and shimmer shadows. They are easy to apply without sending shadow-dust flying everywhere, and are robust once you're wearing them - I haven't had to retouch my eyeshadow at all when wearing this palette. The only thing I would say is that the applicator that comes with the palette is useless, so use a nicer brush for best results. 


What a result, eh? I'll definitely be repurchasing the palette when it eventually runs out, and despite the hit or miss results from the lipsticks, I'll  be buying them to test out new shades or for general day to day wear. Check out the full range of MUA products at muastore.co.uk, or pop into a Superdrug store.

'Undressed' Palette: 5/5
Lipstick: 2.5/5